Daily Lesson for October 3, 2017

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Matthew chapter 7 verses 1 through 4:

“Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. 3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but udo not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye?” 5You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour’s eye.

6 ‘Do not give what is holy to dogs; and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under foot and turn and maul you.”

When I was in high school football was everything. Friday Night Lights and all that.  And I was captain of the team and garnered a lot of accolades.

In the parking lot after a practice our senior year one of my best friends told me he was sick and tired of football because he never got to play in the games. He said he couldn’t much more stand coming out and getting beat on in practice and then not playing. He said he didn't care if we made the playoffs.  

When I heard that I let him have it.  It was because of him and others on the team like him that we weren’t winning, I told him.  I was so disgusted; and came within inches of punching him square in the face.

But do you know why I was really so angry?  Because truth be told, I actually hated football.  I couldn't stand it's pressures and anxieties and the fear I went through every Friday night.  Secretly, I had wanted it all to be over since the very first day of high school.  But that was my secret; and I had to do whatever it took to hide it.  What I was fighting in my friend, I was actually fighting inside of me.  And I needed to put up a good fight.

It took me 20 years to see that. For my friend, who never got to play it was a speck; for me, captain of the team, wanting it all to be over was a log. It took 20 years for me to see and admit I had a log — and the log was my own pride.  I had given my pearls — my whole identity — to Texas high school football and I had a hard time admitting just how ambivalent I was about that. I had a hard time admitting how unhealthy it all was. Twenty years. 

We often see the specks in other people's eyes out of proportion because they are distorted by the logs in our own eyes, the dis-ease in our own souls.  The "sin" we are so quick to judge in others is often actually much greater in us.  Our turmoil about our own selves reveals itself in them. We fight them because it's a lot easier than fighting ourselves - or better, making peace with ourselves.